Thursday, November 7, 2013

Happy N7 Day

Today is N7 Day (because it's November 7, so N-7), so today is a day to celebrate Mass Effect. There's only one problem: Mass Effect 3 came out on March 6, 2012. The final DLC, The Citadel, was released March 6, 2013. So it's been a while since we've had anything new to talk about.

So I was sitting at my desk, wanting to post something Mass Effect-related for N7 day, but unable to think of anything new to say. MLW suggested I write about why I love Mass Effect, and why I'm still so into it. I tried to think of what to say that I had not said before in my many posts about Mass Effect, and then MLW asked me if I had seen the N7 Day video above. I had not, so I watched it, and I knew what I wanted to write about.

To me, Mass Effect has everything a video game needs to be great: a great plot, a great setting, great art direction, great gameplay, and most of all, great characters.

If it didn't have great plot, I wouldn't have played each game through several times, making different decisions each time.

If it didn't have a great setting, I wouldn't have created original characters to allow me to explore the other parts of the galaxy in my mind.

If it didn't have great art direction, I wouldn't have taken literally thousands of screenshots over the course of three games.

If it didn't have great gameplay, I wouldn't have tried out several different classes in my single player games, not to mention hours and hours playing multiplayer along with MLW.

And most of all, if Mass Effect didn't have great characters, I wouldn't have fallen in love with it. Wrex, my krogan bro (brogan). Garrus, my cocky wingman. Tali, my nerdy girlfriend. Grunt, my destructive, sort-of-adopted kinda-son. Mordin, my weird, hilarious uncle. Zaeed, my drinking buddy I probably shouldn't go drinking with any more (but do anyway). Samara, my uncomfortably hot spiritual teacher. These are characters I enjoyed spending time with and grew to like and care about. I can't think of a single video game where I liked the characters this much, which is why the Mass Effect series remains my favorite video game series ever.